About the Work
The Man in the High Castle is a work of speculative fiction that imagines a world in which the Axis powers won the Second World War. The novel is set roughly two decades after this alternate history’s version of the war’s end, with the former United States divided into three zones of occupation: the Pacific States of America under Japanese control, the Eastern United States under German control, and a buffer zone of Rocky Mountain States that maintains a precarious, semi-independent existence between the two empires. The narrative is not a single linear story but rather a braided account of several characters whose lives intersect across these divided territories, each struggling with questions of identity, authenticity, and moral survival under totalitarian rule.
The book is notable for its incorporation of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese divination text, both as a structural device and as a recurring element within the lives of its characters. Several figures in the novel consult the oracle at moments of crisis, and their readings shape their decisions and self-understanding. The author acknowledges in his front matter the specific translation of the I Ching he used, as well as a range of historical sources on Nazi Germany, indicating the depth of research that underpins the novel’s alternate-world construction. The book also features a novel-within-a-novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a banned work of fiction that imagines an alternate history in which the Allies won the war, and whose author, Hawthorne Abendsen, lives in a fortified compound known as the High Castle.
The novel moves between domestic interiors, commercial spaces, and bureaucratic offices, rendering its alternate world not through grand set pieces but through the texture of everyday life: the objects people collect, the music they play, the meals they eat, the hierarchies they navigate. It is a book concerned with the mundane surfaces of power and the psychological costs of living under an order that one did not choose.
Context
The novel emerges from a period of intense Cold War anxiety, and its alternate history can be read as a projection of contemporary fears about totalitarianism, nuclear weapons, and the fragility of democratic institutions. The author draws extensively on historical accounts of the Nazi regime, including studies of Hitler, the Third Reich, and the Goebbels diaries, as well as works on the Eastern Front and the North African campaign. This documentary grounding gives the novel’s speculative premise a weight of historical plausibility; the world it depicts is not a fantasy but an extrapolation from real events and real personalities.
The novel’s engagement with the I Ching reflects a broader postwar fascination with Eastern philosophy and religion among American intellectuals and artists. The author’s use of the oracle as a genuine narrative force—rather than a mere prop—suggests a serious interest in alternative modes of knowing and decision-making that stand outside Western rationalism and its failures. In a world where the Enlightenment project has been perverted into genocide and imperial conquest, the ancient Chinese text offers a different relationship to fate, chance, and moral action.
The book also participates in a tradition of alternate-history fiction that asks not only “what if” but “what does it mean to imagine otherwise?” The novel-within-the-novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, functions as a meditation on the very act of counterfactual thinking, and the responses of the characters to this banned book reveal much about their own positions within the Axis-dominated world. For some, the book is a dangerous fantasy; for others, a source of hope; for still others, an occasion for contempt. The novel thus explores not just an alternate world but the human need to imagine alternatives at all.
Structure of the Book
The novel is organized into a sequence of chapters that alternate among a set of principal characters and locations, gradually drawing their separate storylines into convergence. The opening chapters establish the world through the consciousness of Robert Childan, a white American dealer in historical artifacts in Japanese-occupied San Francisco, and Frank Frink, a recently fired metalworker who is secretly Jewish and fears for his life. These two figures, one a collaborator and the other a hunted man, represent opposite poles of white experience under Japanese rule.
A second major thread follows Juliana Frink, Frank’s ex-wife, who lives in the Rocky Mountain States and becomes involved with a mysterious Italian truck driver named Joe Cinnadella. Their relationship, which begins as a casual encounter, deepens into something more ominous as Joe’s past as a Nazi soldier emerges. Juliana’s journey eventually takes her toward Cheyenne and the High Castle itself, the home of Hawthorne Abendsen, author of the banned alternate-history novel.
A third thread centers on Mr. Tagomi, a Japanese trade official in San Francisco, and his dealings with a visitor who calls himself Mr. Baynes, ostensibly a Swedish businessman but actually a German national with a hidden mission. Tagomi’s story involves political intrigue surrounding the death of the Reichs Chancellor Martin Bormann and the succession struggle among Nazi leaders, as well as a personal crisis of conscience as he confronts the reality of Nazi evil.
The narrative structure is less a conventional plot with rising action and climax than a series of interlocking episodes that build a composite portrait of a society. The novel moves between private moments—consulting the I Ching, preparing a meal, examining an artifact—and public events such as political briefings and radio broadcasts. The pacing is deliberate, even meditative, with long passages of interior monologue and sensory description. The convergence of the characters’ storylines in the latter portion of the book, particularly around the figure of Abendsen and the meaning of his book, gives the novel a degree of narrative momentum without resolving into a simple conclusion.
Inside the Book
The Dedication and the Oracle
The book opens with a dedication to the author’s wife, Anne, and a series of acknowledgements that establish the novel’s intellectual scaffolding. The author credits the I Ching (the Richard Wilhelm translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes) as the version used and quoted throughout, and he cites specific poems and their translators. He also acknowledges his debt to historical works on the Third Reich and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, as well as a Western writer for help with historic artifacts. This front matter immediately signals that the ancient Chinese oracle and the alternate history of the Nazi empire will be central to the narrative that follows.
Childan’s Anxious Wait
The story proper begins with Mr. R. Childan, the owner of American Artistic Handcrafts Inc. in San Francisco, anxiously checking his mail for a valuable shipment from the Rocky Mountain States that has failed to arrive. On Friday morning, finding only letters, he fears an angry customer. As he prepares his store—sweeping, filling the cash register, placing marigolds—he watches the city around him, noting the Japanese businessmen and women in long silk dresses. The phone rings: it is Mr. Tagomi, a fussy, brisk voice, asking about a Civil War recruiting poster he ordered as a gift for a client. Tagomi interrupts Childan’s explanations, deliberately mispronouncing his name—an insult within a code that mortifies Childan, exposing his deep-seated anxieties. Childan stammers, offering alternatives like a butter churn or an ice-cream maker, and makes an appointment for two o’clock at Tagomi’s office.
A young Japanese couple, the Kasouras, enters the store. They are handsome and well-dressed, admiring an ashtray. Childan guesses they live in the exclusive new apartments on Skyline. The man, stationed with a planning commission, is proud and cultured, unlike the boorish draftees. The girl, Betty, says they are starting to decorate their home. Childan offers to bring various American artifacts to their apartment, impressing the man. After they leave, Childan feels a surge of joy—a chance to meet a young Japanese couple socially, accepted as a man, not as a “yank” or tradesman. He thinks the rising generation, who do not remember the war, are the hope of the world. Yet he trembles, fearing a faux pas. He recalls his appointment with Tagomi, and his nervousness becomes determination. He fantasizes about finding a rare artifact to impress connoisseurs, then lights a marijuana cigarette.
Frink’s Predicament
The scene shifts to Frank Frink, lying in bed in his room on Hayes Street, hungover and realizing it is eleven-thirty. He has been fired. Yesterday he spoke wrongly to Mr. Wyndam-Matson, a powerful man. Frink fears blacklisting; he has no trade despite fifteen years’ experience. He must appear before the Laborers’ Justification Commission, run by the puppet white government, and if he fails there, he can appeal to the Japanese Trade Missions. He considers fleeing to the Rocky Mountain States, but it is loosely banded to the Pacific States and might extradite him. He recoils from the South, where as a white man he would have more place, but the South has ties with the Reich—and Frank Frink is a Jew. His original name was Frank Fink, born in New York, and he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941.
Frink is horrified by the thought of an “ancient gigantic cannibal near-man” flourishing and ruling the world once more. A radio broadcast from Tokyo speaks, deploring the waste of humans in fanatical striving. Frink realizes he must make a pact with the Japanese authorities; leaving Japanese-controlled land for the South or Europe would mean death. He concludes he must come to terms with Wyndam-Matson. Seated on his bed with lukewarm tea, Frink consults the I Ching using forty-nine yarrow stalks, asking how he should approach Wyndam-Matson. He obtains Hexagram Fifteen, Ch’ien (Modesty), which he finds a good omen but somewhat “fatuous” and “too goody-goody.” The hexagram is static, so he is through. He asks a new question: “Will I ever see Juliana again?”—his ex-wife, who divorced him a year ago. He casts the stalks again, reflecting on the random yet connected nature of the moment. He obtains Hexagram Forty-four, Kou (Coming to Meet), whose judgment warns that “the maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden.” Frink is dismayed.
Frink recalls Juliana: the best-looking woman he ever married, with soot-black eyebrows and hair, a rubbery soundless walk, wearing saddle shoes from high school. Her clothes were dilapidated and old. She hated him and their poverty because it made her look like a woman who played tennis or collected mushrooms. He was drawn by her “screwball expression”—she greeted strangers with a portentous, Mona Lisa smile. He first thought it was bad eyesight, then decided it revealed deep-dyed stupidity. Yet even toward the end, he saw her as “a direct, literal invention of God’s.” He cannot get over losing her.
Tagomi’s Preparations
Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi sits consulting the I Ching in his office on the twentieth floor of the Nippon Times Building. At noon he became apprehensive about his appointment with Mr. Childan, occurring in two hours. He lowers bamboo blinds to darken the room and think clearly. Tagomi decides it is not within his power to please his client; whatever Childan brings, the client will not be impressed. But he can keep the client from becoming displeased, refraining from insulting him with a “moldy gift.” The client will arrive at San Francisco airport via the German rocket, the Messerschmitt 9-E. Tagomi has never ridden such a ship; he practices appearing blasé before a mirror, rehearsing remarks about noise and German mechanical failures. He must avoid politics, as he does not know Mr. Baynes’ views. Baynes is Swedish, a neutral, yet chose Lufthansa over SAS—a cautious ploy. In a folder is a clipping from the New York Times of a speech by Baynes about exploring for water on the moon.
Childan’s Ride and Reflections
Robert Childan rides in a pedecab through a noisy cityscape of blaring radios and neon signs. He is lulled by the uproar, which blots out his inner worries. He reflects that being peddled by another human being—a “chink”—is pleasurable; he enjoys being pulled rather than pulling, and having, “if even for a moment, higher place.” Guiltily, he wakes himself from this midday doze. He worries about being properly dressed to enter the Nippon Times Building and fears fainting in the high-speed elevator. He rehearses modes of address: be brusque with doormen and elevator operators, bow to any Japanese, and for “pinocs,” bow but look straight through them. He might see a slave. German or South ships dock at San Francisco; blacks are occasionally allowed off, always in groups of fewer than three, and must obey curfew.
Tagomi Meets Baynes
At the far end of the airport field, near the concourse entrance, a crowd of relatives and friends waits, waving and scanning the faces of arriving passengers. Standing slightly ahead of them is a heavyset, middle-aged Japanese man, impeccably dressed in a British overcoat, pointed Oxfords, and a bowler hat, with the badge of the ranking Pacific Trade Mission of the Imperial Government on his lapel. A younger Japanese man stands beside him. Baynes realizes this is Mr. N. Tagomi, who has come personally to meet him. Tagomi calls out, “Herr Baynes — good evening,” tilting his head hesitantly. They shake hands, then bow, and the younger man, Mr. Kotomichi, also bows, beaming.
Tagomi remarks that it is cold on the exposed field and proposes they return to the city by Mission helicopter. He asks if Baynes needs to use the facilities, but Baynes says they can start immediately, wanting to check in at his hotel, though he mentions his baggage. Tagomi assures him that Mr. Kotomichi will attend to that and follow, noting that claiming baggage at this terminal takes almost an hour in line. Mr. Kotomichi smiles agreeably. Tagomi then says, “Sir, I have a gift to graft,” before correcting himself: “To invite your favorable attitude.” He brings out a small box from his overcoat pocket, explaining it is “Selected from among the finest objects d’art of America available.” Baynes accepts it with thanks. Tagomi explains that all afternoon, assorted officials examined alternatives; this is the “most authentic of dying old U.S. culture, a rare retained artifact carrying flavor of bygone halcyon day.” Baynes opens the box to find a Mickey Mouse wristwatch resting on a pad of black velvet. He wonders if Tagomi is joking, but sees the tense, concerned face of the man—it is not a joke. Baynes thanks him, calling it incredible. Tagomi says only a few, perhaps ten, authentic 1938 Mickey Mouse watches exist in the world today, and no collector he knows has one. They enter the air terminal and ascend the ramp. Behind them, Mr. Kotomichi recites an old poem: “Harusame ni nuretsutsu yane no temari kana…” When Baynes asks what it is, Tagomi explains it is from the Middle Tokugawa Period, and Kotomichi translates: “As the spring rains fall, soaking in them, on the roof, is a child’s rag ball.”
Frank Frink and Ed McCarthy
The scene shifts to Frank Frink, who watches his ex-employer waddle down the corridor into the main work area of W-M Corporation. Frink thinks Wyndam-Matson does not look like a factory owner; he looks like a Tenderloin bum given a bath, new clothes, and a shave. The old man has a weak, shifty, nervous manner, as if regarding everyone as a potential enemy stronger than himself, whom he must fawn on and pacify. Yet W-M is genuinely powerful, owning controlling interests in enterprises, speculations, real estate, and the factory itself. Frink follows, pushing open the big metal door to the main work area, with its rumble of machinery, flashes of light, and waste dust. He calls out, “Hey, Mr. W-M!” The old man has stopped by the hairy-armed shop foreman, Ed McCarthy. Both glance up.
Wyndam-Matson, moistening his lips nervously, says he is sorry but cannot take Frank back; he has already hired someone to replace him, thinking Frank wasn’t coming back after what he said. His small round eyes flicker with an almost hereditary evasiveness. Frink says he came for his tools, nothing else, his voice firm, even harsh. W-M mumbles, hazy about the status of Frink’s tools, tells Ed McCarthy it would be in his department, says he has other business, glances at his pocket watch, and trots off without looking back. McCarthy and Frink stand together. McCarthy says, “You came to get your job back.” Frink admits it, saying he was proud of what he said yesterday but can’t work it out anywhere else; he feels defeated and hopeless. McCarthy notes that Frink is as good with the flex-cable machine as anybody on the Coast, able to whip out a piece in five minutes including rouge polishing, all the way from rough Cratex, except for the welding. Frink says he never claimed he could weld. McCarthy asks if Frink ever thought of going into business on his own. Frink, taken by surprise, stammers, “What doing?” McCarthy says “Jewelry.” Frink scoffs, but McCarthy specifies custom, original pieces, not commercial. He beckons Frink to a corner away from the noise. For about two thousand bucks, Frink could set up a little basement or garage shop. McCarthy once drew up designs for women’s earrings and pendants—real modern contemporary. Taking scratch paper, he begins to draw slowly, grimly. Frink peers over his shoulder and sees a bracelet design, an abstract with flowing lines. He asks if there is a market; all he has ever seen are traditional—even antique—objects.
Childan and the Admiral’s Gentleman
Robert Childan reflects that a two-hour showing was too long, totaling almost four hours, making it too late to reopen his store. He had spent an entire afternoon to sell one item: a Mickey Mouse watch. He unlocks his store door, props it open, and goes to the rear to hang up his coat. Upon re-emerging, he finds a customer: a white man. Childan is surprised, thinking “Surprise.” He greets him, “Good day, sir,” bowing slightly, guessing the man is probably a pinoc. The man is slender, rather dark, well-dressed, and fashionable, but not at ease, with a slight shine of perspiration. The man murmurs “Good day” and moves around the store inspecting displays. He then approaches the counter, reaches into his coat, produces a small shiny leather cardcase, and sets down a multicolored, elaborately printed card. The card bears the Imperial emblem and military insignia of the Navy, identifying Admiral Harusha. Childan examines it, impressed.
The customer explains that the admiral’s ship, the carrier Syokaku, lies in San Francisco Bay at that moment. Childan says, “Ah.” The customer explains that Admiral Harusha has never before visited the West Coast and has many wishes, one being to pay a personal visit to Childan’s famous store, having heard of American Artistic Handcrafts Inc. in the Home Islands. Childan bows with delight. However, the man continues, due to pressure of appointments, the admiral cannot pay a personal visit; he has sent the man instead, who is the admiral’s “gentleman.” Childan asks if the admiral is a collector, his mind working at top speed. The man says the admiral is a lover of the arts and a connoisseur, but not a collector. What he desires is for gift purposes: he wishes to present each officer of his ship a valuable historic artifact, a side arm of the epic American Civil War. There are twelve officers in all. Childan thinks to himself: twelve Civil War side arms, costing the buyer almost ten thousand dollars. He trembles.
Joe’s Confession and Juliana’s Unease
Joe tells Juliana that he has lived under the Nazis for nearly fifteen years, working for Organization Todt since 1947 in North Africa and the United States. He insists he was an engineer, not a laborer, and recalls the moment Doctor Todt himself inspected his work crew and told him, “You got good hands.” Joe praises this as a profound moment, extolling the Nazi “dignity of labor,” which he claims ended aristocratic contempt for manual work. He remembers living in the woods in Upper State New York “like brothers,” singing songs and marching to work to rebuild after the war, calling those the best days of his life. He now condemns the big cartels like New Jersey Krupp and Sohnen, arguing that Nazis like Rommel and Todt were better men than the industrialists and bankers, whom he says “ought to have been gassed.”
Juliana internally counters that those “gentlemen in vests” are permanent, while Joe’s idols only appeared after hostilities to clear rubble and build autobahns. She reflects that the Nazis even allowed Jews to live until 1949, after which Todt and Rommel retired. She recalls her husband Frank, a Jew, and acknowledges that Doctor Todt was a modest builder who wanted honest work and housing for everyone regardless of race, and largely succeeded. Yet she remains troubled.
Juliana asks Joe how he could read the banned Grasshopper book on the East Coast. He says it depends on one’s racial group and the “good old armband.” She notes that Slavs, Poles, and Puerto Ricans were most restricted, while Anglo-Saxons had more freedom, but the book was forbidden to everyone. Joe admits he read it in the toilet, hiding it in a pillow, partly because it was banned. She calls him brave; he doubts her sincerity, then accuses her people of living a “safe, purposeless life” out of the stream of events. She accuses him of cynicism, saying his idols were taken away and he has nothing to love.
Joe nods at the book, noting Abendsen lives in Cheyenne. Juliana reads the jacket: Abendsen is an ex-Marine sergeant wounded in England by a Nazi Tiger tank, and writes in a fortress with guns. She adds she has heard he is paranoid, with barbed wire in the mountains. Joe says the German bigwigs “hit the roof” over the book. Juliana says the place is called “The High Castle.” She praises Abendsen’s courage, saying if the Axis had lost, there would be free speech and a fair legal system. Joe nods reasonably, surprising her. She grabs his ears, demanding he say what he believes, accusing him of defending monsters who slaughtered Jews. He dismisses her with the old brownshirt term Eierkopf (egghead). She asks why he stays; his grimace chills her. She wishes she had never let him come, feeling something terrible is emerging from him.
Joe tries to comfort her, offering to analyze her free, joking about being called a “Jew analyst.” He says she is scared of men, promises never to hurt her, and claims he can relax and improve her. She feels cheered but still cold and sad.
Tagomi’s Day of Turmoil
Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi begins his day alone in his office in the Nippon Times Building. He has received Ito’s report that Mr. Baynes is not a Swede but a German national, though Tagomi dismisses Ito’s abilities. Tagomi likes Baynes, trusting his intuition about people. He hopes the zaracaine helped Baynes’s headache. His intercom buzzes; he refuses discussion, calling it a moment for “Inner Truth.” Mr. Ramsey announces that the Reichs Chancellor, Martin Bormann, is dead. Tagomi cancels business, plans a formal note to the Reichs Consul, and orders Ramsey to keep the line to Tokyo open.
At nine, a message arrives from the Japanese Ambassador to the Pacific States, Baron L. B. Kaelemakule, calling an extraordinary session at the embassy on Sutter Street. Tagomi hurries there by limousine. In a large hall, a Foreign Office official describes the contending German factions. He details Hermann Goring: a ruthless early Nazi, sybaritic, compared to ancient Roman Caesars, craving power, intelligent but vulgar. Next, J. Goebbels: brilliant orator, educated, charming but with a rabid streak, the sole authentic intellectual of the Partei. Then R. Heydrich: younger, feared, possibly involved in Himmler’s death in 1948, supported Bormann, devoid of affectivity, a “question mark.” Then Baldur von Schirach: idealist, not highly competent, mitigated Slavic extermination. Finally, Doctor Seyss-Inquart: most hated, responsible for colonial repression, possibly sterilizing Russians and creating genocide conditions in Africa.
Tagomi feels ill, thinks he is going mad, and runs out to the lavatory. The panic ceases. He thinks it is vertigo or a diencephalon malfunction. He tries to recall the order of the world, imagining a gavotte from Gondoliers by G. S. An embassy employee offers help; Tagomi bows, saying he is recovered. He thinks they may be laughing at him, and concludes: “There is evil! It’s actual like cement.”
Tagomi’s Aftermath and the I Ching
Mr. Tagomi, in distress, wanders the embassy lobby, unable to believe or stand what he has heard. He reflects that evil is not a view, and that all religion is wrong. He walks outside to his car, forgetting his briefcase, and instructs his chauffeur to drive slowly to the Nippon Times Building. He observes the city and its people.
Back at his office, he instructs Mr. Ramsey to contact the Non-Ferrous Ores Mission and request that its representative to the Foreign Office meeting call him. Shortly before noon, the call comes. Mr. Tagomi admits his distress and hasty flight was palpable. The Non-Ferrous man is tactful, saying he saw nothing and everyone was wrapped up in the lecture. He reports on the rest of the meeting: after the part about Doctor Seyss-Inquart, the speaker discussed Germany’s economic situation. The Home Islands view Germany’s scheme to reduce European and Northern Asian populations to slavery, plus murdering intellectuals, bourgeois elements, and patriotic youth, as an economic catastrophe. Only German science and industry’s technological achievements—miracle weapons—have saved them. Mr. Tagomi compares this to the V-1, V-2, and jet fighters. The Non-Ferrous man calls it sleight-of-hand, noting atomic energy and rocket travel to Mars and Venus have yielded nothing of economic worth. The prognosis was gloomy: high-placed Nazis refuse to face facts, accelerating manic adventures, less predictability, and instability, bringing the most irresponsible aspirants to the top. The worst choices, per the Imperial Government, are R. Heydrich, Doctor Seyss-Inquart, and H. Goring. The best are possibly B. von Schirach and Doctor Goebbels. The speaker urged faith in the Emperor and Cabinet, and there was a moment of respectful silence.
After hanging up, Miss Ephreikian reminds Mr.
The Consul’s Calculations
Herr Reiss, the German Consul in San Francisco, sat with the copy of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy before him, his thoughts curdling into a familiar, bitter resentment. Novelists, he reflected, were no better than Doctor Goebbels, who had begun his own career writing fiction. They appealed to the base lusts hidden in every man, knowing humanity was worthless, ruled by its testicles, swayed by cowardice, and ready to sell out any cause for greed. The novelist thumped the drum and got his response, laughing behind his hand. Reiss felt the author had played on his sentiments, not his intellect, and he suspected someone had put the “Hundsfott” up to it, instructing him what to write. The public, he mused, took the smelly brew seriously.
He inspected the book’s copy, noting it was published in Omaha, Nebraska, described as the last outpost of the former plutocratic U.S. publishing industry, once centered in downtown New York and supported by Jewish and Communist gold. He wondered if the author, Abendsen, was a Jew, calling it a “jlidisches Buch.” He slammed the covers together, certain the real name was probably Abendstein, and assumed the SD had already investigated. He thought they ought to send someone into the RMS to visit Herr Abendstein, wondering if “Kreuz vom Meere” had received instructions, though he doubted it given the confusion in Berlin over domestic matters. The book was dangerous. If Abendstein were found dangling from the ceiling, it would be a sobering notice. It would take a white man; he wondered what Skorzeny was doing. He reread the dust jacket, noting the “kike” was barricaded in the High Castle. Whoever got in wouldn’t get back out. He wondered if it was foolish, since the book was in print, and it was Japanese-dominated territory where the “little yellow men” would fuss.
Freiherr Hugo Reiss made a notation to broach the subject with SS General Otto Skorzeny, or better, Otto Ohlendorf at Amt III of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. He wondered if Ohlendorf had headed Einsatzgruppe D. Suddenly, he felt sick with rage, thinking it should be over; the war ended years ago, but there was the Africa Fiasco with Seyss-Inquart carrying out Rosenberg’s schemes. He thought Herr Hope was right with his joke about contact on Mars, populated by Jews. He decided he had routine duties and no time for harebrained adventures sending Einsatzkommandos after Abendsen. His hands were full greeting German sailors and answering coded radiograms. If he instigated it and it backfired, he would be in Protective Custody in the Eastern General Gouvernement, or in a chamber with Zyklon B gas. He scratched out the notation and burned the paper in the ashtray. His secretary, Pferdehuf, entered with Doctor Goebbels’ speech in its entirety, saying it was quite good. Reiss lit a Simon Arzt Number 70 cigarette and began reading.
The First Batch of Edfrank Jewelry
After two weeks of work, Edfrank Custom Jewelry produced its first batch. Pieces lay on two boards covered with black velvet in a square wicker basket of Japanese origin. Ed McCarthy and Frank Frink had made business cards using an artgun eraser and a children’s toy rotary printing set on high-quality Christmas-card colored paper. They had been professional in all aspects. Frink thought they were both pros in shopwork generally. The display included cuff bracelets of brass, copper, bronze, and hot-forged black iron; pendants of brass with silver ornamentation; silver earrings; and silver or brass pins. They had bought semiprecious stones: baroque pearls, spinneis, jade, fire opal slivers. If successful, they would try gold and diamonds.
Gold would bring real profit. They had searched for scrap gold from melted-down antiques. One gold pin would sell for more than forty brass pins. They had not yet tried to sell, having solved technical problems with their bench, motors, flex-cable machine, and finishing tools. They had jewelers’ tools from Germany and France, and over half of the two thousand dollars was spent, leaving two hundred and fifty dollars in the Edfrank bank account. They had PSA permits. Frink thought no retailer could inspect tougher than they had; quality control was excellent. On their list, Robert Childan’s store appeared first, but only Ed could go because Childan would remember Frink.
Ed was resigned to approaching Childan, having bought a good suit, tie, and shirt. He looked ill-at-ease but said he knew they were good. The pieces were abstract, some delicate, some heavy. Frink realized one store could buy everything. He considered consulting the oracle, the I Ching, about Ed’s selling trip, but was too nervous; the die was cast. Ed said he would tackle Childan’s place first. They got into their pickup truck with the wicker hamper. Frink thought of Juliana, wishing she were there to sell, as she was pretty and could talk to anyone. He imagined her with their jewelry, her black hair, pale skin, and gray jersey sweater. He thought she would look best in earrings, and they could photograph her for advertising. He thought her vanity was great; she craved attention, was babyish, and could not stand being alone. Ed asked if Frink was losing his nerve. Ed said he was not scared or intimidated, and would give it to that “poop-head.” He mentioned Frink’s line about being a Jap admiral’s gentleman. Frink corrected him.
Joe’s Money and the Cylindrical Pen
Joe told Juliana he had money and to look in his suitcase. He shut the bathroom door to drown out conversation with shower noise. Juliana opened his grip and found an envelope containing high-value Reichsbank bills, good anywhere. She realized they could go, and hoped he was not just stringing her along, but wished she could see inside him. Beneath the envelope, Juliana found a huge, heavy cylindrical fountain pen with a clip and gold point. She asked Joe about it when he returned from the shower. He took it from her and returned it to the grip, handling it very carefully, which she noticed and found perplexing.
Joe seemed lighthearted, more than at any time since she had met him. He clasped her, hoisted her, swung her, and kissed her hard. He spoke of going on a march like the March on Rome, mentioning the Duce and his Uncle Carlo. He said they would get new clothes, and she could teach him manners, though he admitted he talked with a “real wop accent.” Juliana reflected that Joe was in a strange mood—restless and brooding until he decided to move on, then hopped up. She wondered if he really wanted her or would ditch her. She thought she would ditch him if she were going on. Juliana asked if the money was his pay from truck driving. Joe broke in, saying he rode the rig not to drive but to keep off hijackers, pretending to sleep in the cab. He revealed a thin knife that appeared from his sleeve. He claimed the Volkswagen people hired him due to his service record, and that he protected against Haselden and his commandos.
Childan’s Stand
Paul’s question hung in the air as he accompanied Robert Childan to the door. Paul asked whether American artisans had made the Edfrank jewelry piece entirely by hand, with the labor of their own bodies. Childan confirmed it, from the initial design to the final polish. Paul then asked whether these artisans would “play along,” imagining they had dreamed otherwise for their work. Childan said they could be persuaded, seeing the problem as minor. In that instant, Childan grasped Paul’s meaning: the entire affair had been a cruel dismissal of American efforts. Paul had manipulated him, step by step, into agreeing that American handcrafted products were good only as models for “junky good-luck charms.” Childan recognized this as Japanese subtlety—not crude rule, but ingenious, timeless manipulation. Paul had not stated that American art was worthless; he had made Childan say it himself, then expressed regret at hearing it.
Childan felt humiliated and helpless, perceiving that Japanese defeats were so delicate that one must rise in evolution to perceive them. He considered throwing the jewelry into Paul’s wastebasket but could not; his spontaneity felt crushed, his conscience snared by an invisible string from the piece to his soul. His voice croaking, Childan declared, “Paul, I… am… humiliated.” Paul asked why with detached concern. Childan proclaimed his pride in the work, rejected any notion of trashy good-luck charms, and demanded an apology for the insult to American artists, himself included. After an incredible, prolonged silence, Paul said, “Forgive my arrogant imposition,” and offered his hand. They shook hands. Calmness descended on Childan; he felt he had lived through and out, by the grace of God. He placed the Edfrank piece in his coat pocket.
The Revelation of Operation Lowenzahn
Mr. Ramsey introduced “Mr. Yatabe” to Mr. Tagomi, who recognized the old gentleman as General Tedeki, former Imperial Chief of Staff. Tagomi bowed low. The general asked where the third party was; Tagomi said he neared. Ten minutes passed in silence before Ramsey departed. Tagomi admitted fear, sensing something terrible. He revealed that Mr. Baynes, whom he had entertained in his home, declared himself a Swede but appeared to be a highly placed German. Tagomi inferred a connection with political upheavals in the Reich. The general accused Tagomi of “fishing, not informing.” Tagomi asked if his presence was mere formality to baffle Nazi snoops. The general explained that Baynes was supposedly a representative for Tor-Am industries of Stockholm; the fiction’s purpose was not to deceive but to require formalities in case of exposure—the Nazis must resort to legalities rather than simply shooting Baynes down.
Baynes arrived and announced himself as Captain R. Wegener of the Reichs Naval Counter-Intelligence, representing no one but himself and certain private unnamed individuals. General Tedeki responded as an unofficial private party with access to Tokyo circles. Baynes revealed Operation Lowenzahn (“Dandelion”): an incident on the border between the Rocky Mountain States and the United States. U.S. troops would be attacked, retaliate by crossing the border, and engage RMS troops. Germany would declare support, sending Wehrmacht paratroopers as camouflage. The basic purpose was an enormous nuclear attack on the Home Islands without warning—wiping out the Royal Family, Home Defense Army, Imperial Navy, civil population, industries, and resources. The date had changed due to the death of M. Bormann. Baynes recommended Japanese intervention in Reich domestic politics. Doctor Goebbels was now Reichs Chancellor and advocated Dandelion; SS General Heydrich opposed it. Administration of Japanese-held areas would go to the Foreign Office, while the police were denied authority and instead managed space colonization.
General Tedeki asked if they were to support the Sicherheitsdienst—“the most malignant portion of German society.” Baynes confirmed. Tedeki said the Emperor would never tolerate this, regarding the Reich’s elite corps as evil. Tagomi reflected on the moral ambiguity. Baynes argued they should reflect on actual power, not ethical intentions: the Wehrmacht solely possessed the hydrogen bomb, and the blackshirts had used it only under Army supervision. Baynes suggested contacting someone close to Heydrich outside the Reich—possibly Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, or through economic interests like Krupps, General Speidel, or Waffen-SS personages. The Abwehr could not help, as the blackshirts reviled them. Baynes gave Tedeki a silver cigarette case containing microfilm in hollow cigarettes.
The Standoff and the Shooting
Ramsey reported SD men in the lobby attempting to take over the building; Army MPs and San Francisco Kempeitai were en route. Tagomi told Ramsey to turn off elevator power. Tagomi opened his desk drawer, unlocked a teakwood box, and brought forth a preserved U.S. 1860 Civil War Colt .44. He loaded it with loose powder, ball, and cap ammunition, pointed it at the office door, and waited.
At the basement workshop bench, Frank Frink polished a half-finished silver earring shaped in a snail-shell spiral. Ed McCarthy advised against over-polishing, saying silverwork should have an old look. Frink reflected that they had sold nothing except the consignment at American Artistic Handcrafts; they had visited five retail shops. They were making more jewelry that piled up around them, earning no money. An earring piece flew from Frink’s hands, landing on the floor. McCarthy told him to pick it up. Frink expressed despair, saying they were “pouring money in for nothing” and could not sell anything. McCarthy told him to quit, and Frink said he already had. McCarthy resolved to continue alone. Frink offered to be bought out for six hundred dollars, but McCarthy refused, proposing they split everything in half, including the motor. They agreed to discuss it after three more stores. Frink retrieved the earring, placed it in a carton, and went outside for a smoke.
Outside, Frink smoked a T’ien-lai marijuana cigarette. He felt it was all over, recognizing the “Moment” and the smell of defeat. He believed they had “bucked the moment” and the Tao, going upstream in the wrong direction. He felt “Yin” had them and they could only knuckle under. A middle-aged white man approached Frink, identifying himself as from the San Francisco Police Department with a warrant for his arrest on a “Bunco” charge, related to Mr. Childan of American Artistic Handcrafts. A second plainclothes cop joined them, and they forced Frink into an unmarked Toyopet. Frink reflected that this was what the time required. In the police station garage, a cop asked about the money; Frink said he spent it. A cop asked if his real name was “Fink,” calling him a “kike” and a refugee from Europe. Frink said he was born in New York, but the cop called him an escapee from the Nazis. Frink broke away and ran, but was blocked by uniformed police. A cop handcuffed him, cutting his flesh. They said he would be held for the German consul to be tried under German law, and there was no list of attorneys.
Back in Tagomi’s office, Mr. Tagomi sat at his desk holding the revolver while Mr. Baynes paced.
The Silver Triangle and the Policeman
Mr. Tagomi accompanied Mr. Childan to the store entrance, having declined to purchase any of the odd artifacts. He criticized Childan’s newfound certitude as being in “questionable taste” and pressing “untowardly,” yet Childan did not cringe. He asked for forgiveness but insisted he was correct, sensing in the items “the contracted germ of the future.” Tagomi called this “Anglo-Saxon fanaticism” that did not appeal to him, yet he felt a renewal of hope. He said he would see Childan again to examine his prophecy.
Departing with his briefcase containing the Colt .44, Tagomi reflected that he went out as he came in—still seeking, without what he needed to return to the world. He doubted buying one of the odd items would have helped him find his way back; they were for Childan, not him. Yet, he reasoned, if even one person finds his way, there is a Way, even if he personally fails. He envied him. Turning back, he found Childan still in the doorway. Tagomi said he would buy one, whichever Childan selected, having no faith but grasping at straws. He followed Childan to the glass case, stating he did not believe but would carry it and look at it every other day; after two months, if he did not see, Childan said he might return it for full credit. Tagomi felt better, deciding one must sometimes try anything—it is a sign of wisdom. Childan laid out a small silver triangle ornamented with hollow drops, black beneath, bright and light-filled above.
By pedecab, Tagomi journeyed to Portsmouth Square, a park above Kearny Street overlooking the police station. He sat on a bench in the sun among pigeons and shabby men. Holding the paper bag from Childan’s store, he lifted out the silver squiggle. He reflected it was like a cereal trinket or magnifying mirror, or “Om as the Brahmins say”—a shrunk spot capturing all. He inspected it dutifully, wondering if it would come as prophesied. Time would make them sell it short. He apologized to the squiggle for the pressure to act. Like a child pressing a shell to his ear, he tried to hear wisdom, replacing ear with eye, seeking compression of understanding into one finite squiggle. He asked too much and got nothing.
Speaking sotto voce, he mentioned the sales warranty. He shook it violently like a watch or dice, invoking the deity inside, referencing Prophet Elijah’s irony (“Peradventure he sleepeth”). He cursed it, said his patience was running out, and considered flinging it in the gutter. He laughed at his addlepated involvement, relieved no one saw. He had tried everything—pleaded, contemplated, threatened, philosophized. He quoted W. S. Gilbert that such an opportunity would not occur again. He recalled when he was a child he thought as a child, but now must put away childish things and seek in other realms scientifically, in Aristotelian laboratory manner. He put his finger in his right ear, held the triangle to his left ear—no sound. He tried touch, smell (metallic faint odor), taste (bitter, hard, cold). Returning to sight, the highest sense on the Greek scale, he viewed it from every standpoint. He commanded it to yield its arcane secret, like a frog pulled from depths that strangles silently.
He thought metal is from the earth—the lowest, most dense realm, the yin world of corpses, decay, and feces, the daemonic world of the immutable. Yet in sunlight it glitters, reflecting fire—the yang aspect, empyrean and ethereal. The artist takes mineral rock from the dark earth and transforms it into shining light, bringing the dead to life, the past yielding to the future. He asked if it was dark yin or brilliant yang, seeing it as body of yin, soul of yang—metal and fire unified, a microcosmos in his palm. It spoke of vertical ascent to heaven, into the light-world of the mutable. It had disgorged its spirit: light. He was spellbound, no longer free to dismiss it. He told it to talk now that it had snared him, expecting to see the clear white light of the Bardo Thodol afterlife. He did not have to wait for death; he would bypass terrifying and beneficent deities, smoky lights, and couples in coitus. He was ready to face the light without terror, feeling the hot winds of karma but remaining. His training was correct: he must not shrink from the clear white light or he would reenter the cycle of birth and death. As he thought of the veil of maya falling, the light disappeared.
He held a dull silver triangle; a shadow had cut off the sun. A tall, blue-suited policeman stood by his bench, smiling, saying he was watching him work that puzzle. Tagomi echoed “Puzzle,” saying it was not one. The policeman mentioned his kid had such puzzles, some hard, and passed on. Tagomi thought his chance at nirvana was spoiled, interrupted by that “white barbarian Neanderthal yank,” a subhuman supposing he worked a child’s toy. Rising unsteadily, he told himself to calm down, that his dreadful low-class jingoistic racist invectives were unworthy. He walked through the park for catharsis in motion.
The German Consul and the Heart Attack
Mr. Tagomi’s secretary announced the German consul was there to see him. She looked pale and mentioned the consul had been in the building earlier. Tagomi asked Mr. Ramsey for the consul’s name; Ramsey replied “Freiherr Hugo Reiss.” Tagomi reflected that Mr. Childan did him a favor by declining to reaccept the gun. In the corridor, Tagomi saw a slightly built, well-dressed white man with close-cut orange hair, black Oxfords, erect posture, and an effeminate ivory cigarette holder. Tagomi addressed him as “Herr H. Reiss.” The German bowed. Tagomi noted they had done business by mail and phone but never met face to face. Reiss called it an honor “even considering the irritatingly distressing circumstances.” Tagomi’s cognition “hazed over”; he cited “frailty of clay-made substance.” Reiss began to speak but Tagomi interrupted, saying “Before you begin litany, let me speak.” Tagomi stated: “I personally shot your two SD men.” Reiss explained the San Francisco Police Department summoned him; he spent hours at the Kearny Street Station and the morgue, reading the account Tagomi’s people gave investigators. Reiss said the contention that hoodlums are connected with the Reich hadn’t been established; he called the matter insane and said Tagomi acted properly—mispronouncing his name as “Tagori.” Tagomi corrected him. Reiss extended his hand for a “gentlemen’s agreement to drop this,” citing critical times and the danger of stupid publicity inflaming the mob mind. Tagomi said guilt was on his soul: “Blood, Herr Reiss, can never be eradicated like ink.” The consul was nonplused. Tagomi craved forgiveness but said Reiss could not give it; he intended to read the diary of “Goodman C. Mather,” a Massachusetts divine, which deals with guilt and hell-fire.
Tagomi warned Reiss that his nation was about to descend into greater vileness, referencing the hexagram The Abyss.
Main Arguments
The novel argues that power, however absolute it may appear, is never entirely stable. The German Reich, for all its technological and military supremacy, is shown to be riven by factional struggle, economic irrationality, and the madness of its own ideology. The death of Bormann triggers a succession crisis that threatens to destabilize the entire empire, and the Japanese authorities watch with apprehension as the most dangerous Nazi figures vie for control. The novel suggests that totalitarian systems contain the seeds of their own dysfunction, not because they are inefficient but because they are built on denial, paranoia, and the suppression of human complexity.
A related argument concerns the nature of authenticity and value. The novel is filled with objects—Civil War pistols, Mickey Mouse watches, scrimshaw, antique furniture—that are bought, sold, collected, and displayed by the conquerors of America. The question of whether these objects are genuine or counterfeit becomes a matter of life and death for those who deal in them. Childan’s humiliation when a customer exposes one of his guns as a fake reveals the precariousness of his entire enterprise, which depends on the illusion of authenticity. The novel suggests that in a world built on conquest and theft, the distinction between the real and the fake becomes both urgent and impossible to maintain.
The novel also argues for the moral necessity of imagination. The banned book The Grasshopper Lies Heavy represents the power of counterfactual thinking to challenge the given order of things. Even in a world where the Axis won, the novel insists, the human capacity to imagine otherwise remains alive, however dangerous that capacity may be. The characters who engage seriously with the book—Juliana, Paul Kasoura, even Childan in his own limited way—are changed by the encounter, forced to confront the contingency of their own world.
Key Concepts
The I Ching functions as a central motif and structural principle throughout the novel. Characters consult the oracle at moments of decision and crisis, and their readings—Hexagram Fifteen (Modesty), Hexagram Forty-Four (Coming to Meet), Hexagram Forty-Seven (Oppression)—provide commentary on their situations that is both opaque and suggestive. The novel treats the I Ching not as superstition but as a legitimate mode of engaging with the randomness of existence, a way of finding pattern and meaning in the chaos of events. Tagomi’s reflection that books are alive, that spirit animates them, suggests a worldview in which the ancient text participates actively in the world rather than merely describing it.
The concept of “place” is another key motif. Characters are constantly aware of their position in hierarchies of race, nationality, and class. Childan’s elaborate internal rules about how to address Japanese, whites, and “pinocs” reveal a society in which every interaction is governed by status. The term “place” recurs throughout the novel, denoting not just physical location but social standing, dignity, and the recognition of one’s humanity by others. The characters’ anxieties about losing place, or their fantasies of gaining it, drive much of their behavior.
The novel also develops the concept of the “alternate present” through the book-within-the-book. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy imagines a world in which Roosevelt survived assassination, the Allies won the war, and the United States emerged as a global power. The novel’s characters debate the plausibility of this counterfactual scenario, with some dismissing it as fantasy and others finding in it a vision of a better world. The concept of the alternate present raises questions about historical determinism, contingency, and the relationship between imagination and reality.
Themes
A pervasive theme is the corruption of the human spirit under totalitarian rule. The novel traces the psychological contortions required of those who live under Axis domination: the constant calculation of status, the suppression of honest feeling, the internalization of racist hierarchies. Childan’s self-loathing and his simultaneous identification with his conquerors; Frink’s terror as a Jew in hiding; Tagomi’s nausea when confronted with the reality of Nazi evil—all these testify to the spiritual damage inflicted by living in a world where one’s value is determined by race and power.
The theme of authenticity runs throughout the novel, connecting its concern with counterfeit artifacts to deeper questions of identity and truth. Characters are constantly performing roles: the Swedish businessman who is actually German, the Italian truck driver who is actually a Nazi soldier, the Jew who passes as a gentile, the dealer who cannot tell a real Colt from a fake. The novel suggests that in a world of pervasive falsehood, the search for something genuinely real—whether an authentic artifact, an authentic relationship, or an authentic self—becomes both more urgent and more elusive.
The novel also explores the relationship between art and power. The Nazi regime’s hostility to abstract art, expressed through the young German artist Alex Lotze’s defense of “spiritual” art over the “sensual” decadence of cubism, reveals the totalitarian impulse to control not just politics but aesthetics. The Japanese collectors’ fetishization of American popular culture objects—Mickey Mouse watches, Civil War memorabilia, old jazz records—represents a different but related form of cultural appropriation, in which the conquered nation’s history is reduced to collectible commodities. The novel asks what it means to create art, or to value it, in a world where the very categories of the authentic and the beautiful have been colonized by power.
The Author’s Conclusions
The novel concludes not with a dramatic resolution but with a series of quiet, ambiguous endings that leave the characters’ fates uncertain. The final scenes bring Juliana to the High Castle, where she meets Hawthorne Abendsen and confronts the meaning of his book. In a moment of revelation, she consults the I Ching and receives a reading that seems to implicate the oracle itself in the novel’s web of meanings, suggesting that the very text she holds—and perhaps the novel the reader holds as well—is part of an infinite regress of fictions. The novel ends on a note of uncertainty and openness, refusing to provide the comfort of a clear moral or a resolved plot.
What the novel does conclude, through its accumulation of scenes and voices, is that the human capacity for cruelty is matched by a capacity for endurance and even for grace. The characters who survive—who manage to maintain some shred of dignity, some connection to what is real—are those who can acknowledge their own complicity in the systems that oppress them without surrendering entirely to cynicism or despair. Tagomi’s moment of moral clarity, when he recognizes that “evil is actual like cement,” is also a moment of liberation, a refusal to look away. Juliana’s journey toward the High Castle is a search for truth, however unsettling that truth may be. The novel suggests that the only meaningful response to a world of lies is not to retreat into fantasy but to engage with reality, however painful, and to keep asking questions even when the answers are not forthcoming.
Significance
The Man in the High Castle occupies a distinctive place in postwar American literature, both as a work of speculative fiction and as a serious literary meditation on history, power, and morality. Its alternate-history premise has influenced countless subsequent works in the genre, but the novel’s significance extends beyond its formal innovations. By imagining a world in which the Nazis won, the author forces readers to confront the contingency of their own historical moment and the fragility of the values they take for granted. The novel’s refusal to offer easy heroes or villains, its insistence on the complexity of moral life under tyranny, and its engagement with Eastern philosophy as a counterweight to Western rationalism all contribute to its enduring power.
The book’s treatment of the I Ching as a genuine narrative force rather than a decorative element was groundbreaking, and it opened the door for later works of speculative fiction that incorporate non-Western systems of thought. The novel’s exploration of authenticity and counterfeit, both in objects and in identities, anticipates later concerns with simulation and hyperreality in postmodern culture. And its portrait of a world divided between Japanese and German spheres of influence, with the United States reduced to a battleground of imperial ambitions, remains eerily resonant in an era of renewed great-power competition.
The novel also stands as a powerful moral document, a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism that is all the more effective for being indirect. By showing how ordinary people accommodate themselves to evil—how they rationalize, collaborate, look away, or simply try to survive—the author implicates the reader in the very dynamics he depicts. The book does not allow the comfort of distance; it insists that the world it imagines is not so far from our own, and that the choices its characters make are choices we might also make. In this sense, the novel’s significance lies not only in its literary achievement but in its ethical challenge, its demand that we examine the foundations of our own world and the price we are willing to pay to maintain them.
